🇺🇿 The colours of Uzbekistan
3 meanings recorded and 3 colour cities.
Uzbekistan’s flag features dark azure blue, white, green, and thin red stripes. Blue stands for the sky and Turkic heritage, white for peace and good luck, green for nature and new life, and red for the power of life. The crescent and twelve stars symbolise a new nation and the country’s provinces.
Where no official value is given, the swatch shows the colour family, not the exact shade.
- The flag was adopted in November 1991 after a national design contest.
- Twelve stars on the flag represent Uzbekistan’s provinces.
- Red stripes between the main colours symbolise the power of life.
- The crescent moon stands for the birth of a new nation.
- No official shades are specified for the flag’s colours.
The colours of the flag of Uzbekistan
The flag of Uzbekistan is made up of three horizontal stripes: dark azure blue at the top, white in the middle, and dark green at the bottom. Each of these is separated by a thin red line. The blue stripe is said to represent the sky and the Turkic roots of the Uzbek people. White is commonly associated with peace and good fortune, while green stands for nature and renewal. The red lines are described as showing the power of life. In the top left corner, a white crescent and twelve stars are symbols of a new nation and the country’s provinces. These meanings are widely shared but are not set by law.
How the colours were chosen of Uzbekistan
Before independence, Uzbekistan used a flag based on the Soviet Union’s design, with a blue stripe and thin white edges. After declaring independence in September 1991, a contest was held to choose a new flag. Over 200 designs were submitted, and a special commission selected the current flag in November 1991. This made Uzbekistan the first Central Asian republic to adopt a new flag after the Soviet era.
Official shades and rules of Uzbekistan
The law sets the flag’s proportions at 1:2, with each main stripe 40 cm wide and the red stripes 2.5 cm wide on a standard flag. The crescent and twelve stars are placed in a defined rectangle near the flagpole, with precise measurements for their size and arrangement. However, the law does not specify exact shades for the colours, only naming them as azure, white, green, and red.
The facts in this overview come from the Wikipedia article "Flag of Uzbekistan", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Rang rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
What colours mean in Uzbekistan
Customs vary by region, faith and family; these are the meanings most often recorded.
The mosques and tombs of Samarkand are faced with turquoise and deep blue tiles. The three great madrasas of the Registan square and their ribbed turquoise domes are the best known.
Sacred and holyAweSource: RegistanThe flag is blue, white and green with thin red lines. The blue is for the sky and water, and recalls the banner of Timur.
Politics and protestPrideSource: Flag of UzbekistanCotton is called white gold, and an open cotton boll appears on the state emblem. The white band of the flag stands for peace and purity.
Nature and renewalPrideSource: Emblem of UzbekistanColour and feeling in Uzbekistan
The mosques and madrasas of Isfahan and Samarkand are faced in blue and turquoise tile, with domes meant to recall the sky.
Colour cities of Uzbekistan
🇺🇿 City of blue domesSamarkandRibbed turquoise domes and tiled gateways in every shade of blue rise over an old Silk Road capital.
🇺🇿 The sand-coloured holy cityBukharaAn oasis city of pale brick, where patterned brickwork does the work of colour and blue domes are accents.
🇺🇿 Mud walls and a turquoise towerKhivaA walled desert town where a short, fat minaret wrapped in blue-green tile stands over clay-coloured lanes.Nothing matches those filters yet. Take one off, or check back: new colours are written every day.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Samarkand Uz: Adam Harangozó, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bukhara Uz: Euyasik, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Khiva Uz: Doron, CC BY-SA 3.0, source